Is the d20 market completely saturated?

[Thresher]

There is a lot of material out there, some of it great, some boring and depending on the game youre running some of its completely useless. Still, its nice to pick through the books and find the odd little gem of a system or idea that can be adapted to suit, which is great.

What I am sick of is endless books on sharp objects and spells to arm NPC/PC's with, which seem to be pidgeon hole a lot of the genre into just being simple 'monster and bad guy bashing'.

If someone really wanted to try something new, how about a book on "Plots and Intrigue" to add a bit more diversity? I think its a real pity no one seems to have wanted to write material on espionage or just general guides to running a main plot and secondary sub-plots that are parallel to a game.
It would at least make the game a little more diverse and for new GM's or GM's that are stuggling to find challenges for over-armed and over-equiped players. Lets face it, making monsters tough is easy, making people think their way out of problems without finding a bigger bastard sword or improved fireball is a challenge in itself.

Anyway, maybe Im just a bit jaded after playing for a long time but Im sick of dungeons and the magic/magic item system just seems a little bland.

 

[Ghostwind]

I think you will see the market heading in two directions. Innovative books like Mutants & Materminds or Testament at one end, and more specialized books at the other that fit those smaller niches. A likely third direction that may or may not prove fruitful would be those who use licensed settings ala Babylon 5, Stargate, Conan, etc.

 

[JohnNephew]

If someone really wanted to try something new, how about a book on "Plots and Intrigue" to add a bit more diversity?

Watch for Dynasties and Demagogues, which will be shipping to distributors worldwide in about two weeks:

http://www.atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG3220.html

On the topic of oversaturation...part of the problem in the market is that there are so many titles, even if there is something exploring something new and unique, just what you're looking for, it's pretty hard to be aware of it.

There's sort of a chicken and egg situation, where stores are inclined to order the kinds of things that are proven sellers (such as books for the popular races and classes), which may mean that things that are explore new ground may never make it in front of the eyes of potential buyers. In turn, that tells publishers that there isn't actually demand for those items, because sales aren't good, so they go back to the "proven winners."

 

[Thresher]

Thanks for the link JohnNephew, definatly keep my eyes peeled for that one

cheers

 

[Krug]

If someone really wanted to try something new, how about a book on "Plots and Intrigue" to add a bit more diversity?

The problem with intrigue driven campaigns is that there are so many spells that can easily defeat them, particularly at higher levels. Auguries, detect spells, communes, and all that are just an example...

 

[darkbard]

Most people with business sense would do well to keep their ideas on their harddrive (and their money in their pocket) until they can "virtually" guarentee a return that greatly limits their financial risk. All of this strictly in my own opinion, of course.



You've misspelt "cliquey" again...

and you, sir, have misspelt "guarantee".

 

[TalonComics]

It'll be interesting to see if any publishers go from doing print to only doing PDF. We've seen companies go from PDF to print, I wonder if a pendulum swing will cause movement in the other direction.

I guess it depends on why you are publishing. Back in the early 90's I use to take part in a couple of Champions APA's (Amateur Press Association). Basically, about 30 people would put together a packet of material that they had written, make 30 copies of it and then send it to a "central mailer." The central mailer collated all of the packets into one giant issue and then sent it out to all the members. Of course there were tons of topics besides just Champions that were being done.

APA's are pretty much gone now being replaced by PDF fanzines and the like. I could easily see anyone throwing PDFs like this together and selling them for five dollars or less. Essentially, those could easily become books but it really comes down to what motivates you to do material. Is it for the money? Is it just to get the ideas out of your head?

I think quite a few companies can focus on PDFs or even self published material in a photo copy format. Certainly it won't be super popular but it's still not a bad way to get your ideas out there.

~D

 

[Mark]

and you, sir, have misspelt "guarantee".

Well played, but don't "sir" me. Let's stick with "Mark," db...

How've you been? Haven't seen you posting much lately. Drop me an Email soon. I've got something for you.

 

[Kerrick]

I was just thinking last night about this very subject, and I was thinking about posting a semi-rant/gentle persuasive argument to the publishers out there to become more innovative. But I figured it wouldn't really have any effect, so I ditched the idea. Still, I agree with you guys. There are far too many books dealing with the same old subjects: class books, ecology of the (insert monster name) books, PrCs (badly done ones, at least) etc.
I rather disagree that there are too many spellbooks out there. You can NEVER have too many spells . Yes, I agree that we need more "utility" spells - you can have only so many ways to skin a monster alive, drain its life force, and steal its gold, and that's something a lot of people seem to forget.
What we need, along with originality, is quality and the willingness of publishers and designers to admit when a subject has been done to the point where it can't be done any better. Once people start to realize that fighters, wizards, and druids have been done to death (I mean really - how many .alt rangers can we come up with?), they'll move on to bigger and better things, or they'll drop out of the market when they can't think of anything else. And yeah, a lot of them seek to make a quick buck by regurgitating yet another class book - it was a good first book back in the day (along with PrC books), but it doesn't work anymore, unfortunately, because everyone else has already done the same thing - yes, even us; we took a class that hadn't been done before, though (the assassin) and did it up right. And then we moved on to other things.
To answer the original question: is there room for more innovation? Definitely. There are no limits to the imagination, and with this many people working on this many things, we should be having innovation out the yin-yang. Ralts and I discussed this the other night, and we think that the problem is that people are afraid to take a chance - they don't want to put out something they think is really cool, that could add immensely to the game, and then have it sell like crap, or worse, get bad reviews. So they stick with the safe topics - class books, monster books, PrCs. If and when more publishers and designers are willing to take that step and go that little bit further, produce stuff that might seem a little off-the wall but is really a good idea, then we might be seeing an upswing in the market.
Someone asked if we thought 3.5 might bring a spate of new material to the market. I think it might; with the changes to rules, it might open up new avenues for development and inspire new ideas. It may even cut down on the .alt class books (heavens forfend!) as the new edition brings the classes more in line with what people have been envisioning and clamoring for.

 

[spacecrime.com]

I think "saturated" is a good description, but the situation is less scary than it seems to be.

Based on what I'm seeing in my store and hearing from other retailers, the overall market is growing nicely. However, the amount of product on the market is more than the current market can absorb. A lot of products are getting very thin slices of the pie.

So it's going to be tough for a while, and I think a significant number of paper publishers are going to be shutting down production after one last try over the summer. But I do think the market is going to keep growing, and that in a year or so we'll see a greater variety of products selling a larger volume of sales than we are today. The market is saturated at the moment, but I think more solvent is on the way.

cheers,